Determining level of general staff positions
Justin Cook made this Official Information request to University of Waikato
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From: Justin Cook
Dear University of Waikato,
I am requesting the following information under the Official Information Act.
In Section D: Remuneration of the Conditions of Employment for General Staff Employed on Individual Agreements on your website you list the following levels:
- 1
- 2 (180-234 points)
- 3 (235-304 points)
- 4 (305-369 points)
- 5 (370-430 points)
- 6 (431-489 points)
- 7 (490-580 points)
The agreement describes that a position will be evaluated for level as soon as possible after advertising, and that a position may be re-evaluated when substantial changes have occurred, but does not describe what this process of evaluation entails.
How does the University evaluate a role to determine the level? What do the points correspond to?
As I would like a complete understanding of this process, please include documentation consulted or procedures followed by relevant staff to determine the points and level of a role, in your response.
I would prefer to receive the requested information electronically in their original format where possible (e.g. don't convert Word documents to PDF unnecessarily and please don't print and scan documents).
Yours faithfully,
Justin Cook
From: Duanna Fowler
University of Waikato
Dear Justin
Thank you for your information request dated 24 May 2018, which has been
considered under the Official Information Act 1982.
Job evaluation is a systematic method of assessing the relative size of
jobs within an organisation by comparing jobs with each other. Size is
measured by comparing jobs on the basis of common criteria known as
factors, such as knowledge and experience, complexity, interpersonal
skills, etc. Jobs are analysed to assess the degree to which these factors
are present and points attributed accordingly. Most New Zealand medium to
large organisations in both the public and private sectors use job
evaluation to assess internal relativities.
The University of Waikato uses the Strategic Pay SP10 job evaluation
system. This is an external commercial system used extensively in New
Zealand. The system is copyright and details cannot be disclosed to other
parties. The University of Waikato staff who undertake job evaluation are
trained and certificated by Strategic Pay. The salary scale is determined
by the employer taking into account market data.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Duanna Fowler
Director, Office of the Vice-Chancellor
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Luke C left an annotation ()
To expand on Duanna's response, I can add:
1. Key staff in the HR Team that manage job evaluations are likely to hold a copy of the "SP10 Job Evaluation Manual" which provides further detail on how jobs are evaluated. She states "The system is copyright and details cannot be disclosed to other parties." While the material is likely to be in copyright, section 48(1)(a) of the OIA provides protection against any person providing information to another person in response to a request. However if information in copyright is provided to you, you cannot then publish it without permission of the copyright holder (section 48(2)).
2. They can make the "system" (I assume they mean the handbook) available to you by allowing you to view it in person at the university, giving you extracts or a summary (section 16(1)(a) and (e)). They can also explain the system to you verbally (section 16(1)(f)).
3. It possible that they also map the point system you referred to in your request, with bands. https://www.strategicpay.co.nz/Reward/jo...
Link to this